So Much Water So Close to Home is an album by Australian rock band Paul Kelly and the Messengers and was originally released in August 1989.[4][5] The title comes from a short story of the same name by author Raymond Carver.[6] Carver died in August 1988.[7] Kelly co-wrote the score for the 2006 Australian film Jindabyne,
[8] which was also based on the same story.[6] The entire album was recorded in the U.S. with producer Scott Litt,[5] best known for his work with R.E.M. It was released on Mushroom/White Records in Australia & New Zealand and A&M Records for the rest of the world.[5] The album peaked at #10 on the ARIA album charts,[9] but none of its singles, "Sweet Guy", "Careless" and "Most Wanted Man in the World" had any Top 40 chart success.[9] All tracks for the album were written by Kelly,[10] who provided vocals, guitar and harmonica and also co-produced with Litt.[5]
Background
Paul Kelly had formed Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls in 1985, named for a group mentioned by Lou Reed in "Walk on the Wild Side".[4][5][11] For international releases from 1987 on, they used the name Paul Kelly and the Messengers to avoid possible racist interpretations.[4][11] They released Gossip in 1986 on Mushroom Records in Australia and in 1987 on A&M Records for international release.[5]Under the Sun was released in 1987 in Australia and in 1988 internationally.[5]
Their next album, So Much Water So Close to Home was released in 1989 as by Paul Kelly and the Messengers in all markets.[5] It peaked at #10 on the ARIA album charts,[9] but none of its singles reached the ARIA Top 40 Singles charts.[9] The entire album was recorded in the U.S. with producer Scott Litt,[5] best known for his work with R.E.M. Litt had re-mixed some of Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls' tracks from Gossip for its US release as by Paul Kelly and the Messengers.[4][5]So Much Water So Close to Home was released on Mushroom/White Records in Australia and A&M Records in the United States and Europe in 1989.[5]
The title comes from a 1975 short story of the same name by author Raymond Carver[6] (later collected in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love). Album track, "Everything's Turning to White" is based on Carver's short story,[12] it describes the tale of recreational fishermen who find a dead woman's body but continue their trip for three days before reporting their discovery to police.[13] Kelly would go on to co-write the score for the 2006 Australian film Jindabyne,[8] which was also based on the same story.[6] In 1991 Paul Kelly and the Messengers released their next album Comedy.[4][5]
